Society for Quality Education

Volume 20, Number 1, March 2011. ISSN-1201-215

FROM THE PRESIDENT

In this issue, there is some great information for parents and teachers who want to help their children do better in school. For example, you can learn about our exciting accountability seminar in Toronto on April 26. Aunt Malkin tackles the question of whether or not students should be held back a grade in school. Food For Thought looks into why parents aren't more upset when their children do badly in school. There are some interesting book reviews, including one on what it feels like to be a teacher in a system one profoundly disagrees with. And be sure to read right to the end, because we always have something completely different at the bottom. This time, it's a bit frivolous....

Last issue, we polled our readers to find out whether they knew of a child who had been bullied in school. The vast majority of respondents (83%) voted yes, and some left some really heart-rending comments. This month, our poll (click and then scroll down to the bottom of the page) is asking what your goals are for your own child's education. At press time, almost half of respondents indicated that their priority was for schools to prepare their students for future lives as citizens and workers. The next most popular was the development of children's unique abilities.

Please feel free to write back with feedback or topics that you would like addressed in a subsequent newsletter.

Best regards, Malkin

MAIL BAG

Lowering the Drop-Out Rate

Over the years, student promotion meetings have developed into exercises in finding ways to allow kids with failing grades to pass the course. Extensions on late assignments and alternative project/work assignments are examples of this. It used to be that if a student had a mark in the 45-49% range, his or her mark could be "bumped" to a 50%, a passing grade. The range for such a bump has now been downshifted to 39-49%. In my opinion, mandatory 18-year-olds in school is the major cause of this policy. It allows the subject teachers to get rid of students who don't want to be there, thus preserving the teacher's sanity. Been there, done that, and with no apology, but those were 45-49% bumps. Don't blame the teachers though: they are following orders from above. The guilty party is the Ontario government, which is intent on celebrating their success as "the education government". Their policies are producing falsified and bloated success rates. I also blame weak-kneed journalists who lack the will to investigate and give too much respect to government apologists like Annie Kidder. Cambridge, ON

The Claremont School

As you advocate for quality education, you may be interested in a new school that I have opened specifically for students with dyslexia. My curriculum is designed to meet the needs of students who have failed year after year to meet grade expectations in their public schools. Our students learn foundational literacy skills, including morphology, phonics, grammar, and math. All areas of the curriculum have been designed to strengthen auditory processing skills and memory. Our students are making progress in all aspects of learning - despite IEP'S that list their skills at two to three years below grade level. I invite you to visit my school and see a quality curriculum that works. It can be done! Evelyn Reiss, Victoria, BC

All-Day Kindergarten

The mail bag contributor who suggested that all-day kindergarten is just a plot by the teachers' unions to get more teachers hired should do some research and some more thinking. First of all, teachers' unions don't care anything about people who aren't already teachers - and they certainly don't need to swell their ranks to gain more power, as they're already pretty safe in that area. Second, there's lots of evidence that our country would benefit immeasurably from early intervention of the right kind with very young children who otherwise would spend the first few years of their lives in harmful environments. This is by far our best chance of preventing the sudden appearance of anti-social, mentally-stunted, immediate-gratification-seeking children in Grade 1. And we all know how hard it is to alter a child's personality once it has been established. For families that are unable to provide nurturing, enriching, and stimulating home conditions for their young children, some kind of early childhood "creche" would be ideal, but a pre-school kindergarten would help. If we really want to do something about the number of unruly, antagonistic, and uninterested children in our schools, we have to intervene before the damage is done. Is this an intrusion into the right of parents to raise their own children as they see fit? The only people who really worry about that are probably pretty good providers and child-raisers. You won't find young single mothers (yes, I know, that's a simplification) losing sleep over that. I'd be more worried about the quality of the teachers and care-givers in whatever system is put in place. Now there's an area where the teachers' unions could play a part - but I can't see them doing it. Halifax, NS

Merit Pay

I suppose if we offered merit pay to teachers, then we'd need to find an effective method of testing teacher performance. If we found and employed such a method, then we'd also be identifying the very weakest teachers. Weak teachers are a problem for the unions. For reasons of power and money, the unions always proclaim that all teachers are outstanding. Teachers pay union dues based on their salaries. If all teachers are excellent, then all teachers deserve high pay. This means more union dues paid to the unions and more power for them. Toronto, ON

Wordly Wise

In your last newsletter, you highlighted a vocabulary-enhancing program called Wordly Wise. I haven't actually looked at this program, but I have seen other programs designed to increase vocabulary. For the most part, all they do is teach children to use longer words to express ideas which could be adequately expressed by more common words. Although this will increase children's scores on most verbal IQ tests, it does not mean that their ability to understand any academic subject has been enhanced. Still less is it likely to improve non-verbal skills. I can understand why parents would be attracted to programs like Wordly Wise , but in truth they would be much better advised to spend their time looking for stimulating books. Once children pass the age of 9, they learn most of their new vocabulary by reading, and the rate at which it grows is truly phenomenal if the reading material is well-selected. And it's not just empty words that are learned: whole new schemata are built in their minds, enabling them to retain new ideas (and vocabulary) far more easily. For my money, you can't beat historical fiction. Marilyn Jager Adams does a very good review of the literature on learning vocabulary in Beginning to Read: Thinking and learning about print. It's 20 years old, but still very relevant. Norwich, UK

SQE ACTIVITIES

On Tuesday, April 26, we will be hosting Measuring Up - A Conference on School Accountability in Toronto. We have lined up some excellent speakers and panellists - Theo Caldwell, John Snobelen, Dave Agar, Gerry Nicholls, Kevin Gaudet, and more. As well, we will be hosting the Canadian premiere of The Cartel. For more details and to register, click here. We hope to see you there.

Did you know that boys are doing much worse than girls in school? Visit our new website to find out more, including information about what boys need to succeed academically.

ASK AUNT MALKIN

A veteran of the school wars herself, with the scars to prove it, Malkin Dare has had lots of experience dealing with education problems. If you want some been-there-done-that advice, give her a call at 519-884-3166 or e-mail her.

Question

My son is in grade 2 and floundering badly. This comes as no surprise to me, as he struggled terribly in grade 1 as well and should never have been promoted to grade 2. I begged the school to hold him back and let him repeat grade 1, but I was told that this is against board policy. What should I do? Sandra, Markham

Answer

There are no easy answers for kids who have not mastered the work of the previous grade. Neither the students who are held back nor the students who are pushed ahead do well. Both options should be avoided if at all possible.

The truth is - you are faced with a good news, bad news situation. The good news is - your son can learn (they all can). The bad news is - it's up to you to make it happen.

Parents like you have several options, none of them perfect. You can provide massive support in the form of tutoring, either tackling the job yourself at home or paying someone else to do it. You can also look for a different teacher in the same school, or a different school in the same school board, or a school in a different school board, or a private school. Or you can home-school. As I already said, none of these options is without its drawbacks and challenges.

I elaborate on these options in my free book, How To Get The Right Education For Your Child. I would be happy to send you a copy on request.

Because family and local circumstances vary so much, I am always very relucant to say that there is one specific solution that is the best answer for your family. However, there is one piece of advice I AM confident about giving - and that is that you should act now. Your son is getting further behind and more discouraged every day, and the task of salvaging his education is becoming ever more difficult as each day passes. You are probably his only hope. Don't let him down.

Regards, Aunt Malkin

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

In virtually every class in every school in Ontario, there are at least a dozen kids who are unable to keep up with the rest of the class - according to the provincial tests. And perhaps a quarter of these kids are so far behind that they might as well not even be in school. That's a lot of kids - and a lot of parents who should be shouting bloody murder. Why aren't they?

The answer may lie in most parents' inability to do anything about bad schools. They literally have nowhere else to send their kids. In a way it's like the citizens in the countries behind the Iron Curtain. As long as there was nothing they could do about their hated regimes, they mostly just sucked it up. But as soon as it became possible to escape the Iron Curtain via the Hungary/Austria border, tens of thousands of citizens voted with their feet - and the rest is history.

If Wal-Mart had as many ill-served customers as the publicly-funded schools do, it would be losing market share to Zeller's and Giant Tiger. And, since Wal-Mart wouldn't like this, it would start offering better service. But Ontario publicly-funded schools are different. They have a huge advantage over their competitors in the private sector because their service is "free" (paid for from taxes), while the private schools have to charge $10,000+ in tuition fees. If this competitive advantage were reduced (namely if the Ontario government were to subsidize private school tuition), the publicly-funded schools would have to improve their service - lest they lose too many customers to the private schools.

As long as the publicly-funded schools have a guaranteed source of customers and the associated revenue flows, they are very unlikely to improve. It's high time the Ontario government stopped propping up bad schools and made it possible for their poorly-served students to escape to better private schools.

Only then would we get a true picture of how dissatisfied Ontario parents are with their children's schools.

WHAT'S NEW?

Go to our blog, School for Thought, for up-to-the-minute education news, helpful teaching tips, and heated debates. Join the conversation.

BOOKS OF INTEREST

Be That As It May - Or ten stupid things governments do to mess up "eduykshun". Roberta Maclise McDonald

Written by a retired teacher, this book examines modern educational practices in the light of what was done in previous times, usually finding that the past was better. Exceptions are acknowledged, for example charter schools and language immersion. The book is exceptionally interesting, however, because of the light it sheds on teachers' lack of power. Despite deploring many (most?) modern practices, this teacher was unable to do a thing about them. The book will be an eye-opener to those who condemn teachers for going along with progressive policies. The excerpt deals with the burden that the no-textbooks policy places on substitute teachers. (pp. 77-78)

"Getting back to my attempts at finding readily available lessons for the day within 15 minutes or so, rarely did I find any useful textbooks. Based on the accepted educational guidelines that '...a true professional doesn't teach for the test, but uses multiple sources for resource material', textbooks have become almost obsolete, except perhaps for mathematics and senior sciences. This widely-accepted teaching axiom has evolved and stuck for at least 25 years despite some highly-distasteful results. What, I dare ask, was and is wrong with the use of textbooks by a teacher? Everybody uses books (and now the Internet) to enlarge and enhance their knowledge and to remind them of what needs to be done. Imagine a cook who was not allowed to use a cookbook, or a lawyer banned from reviewing past judgments, or a manager who was discouraged from planning a budget or writing procedural manuals? Add to this idiocy the non-necessity for the same teacher to leave a record of his/her lessons for the subsequent teacher(s). Textbooks provide a wealth of information and logical sequences as well as sources for their research, relevant illustrations, graphs, maps, glossaries of difficult and new vocabulary, suggestions for further research or study, not to mention the wonderful list of questions provided so that you as the teacher don't spend hours puzzling over how to test the comprehension of your students."

Brain School: Stories of children with learning disabilities and attention disorders who changed their lives by improving their cognitive functioning. Howard Eaton

The author is the principal of schools in Vancouver and Victoria that use the approach developed by Barbara Arrowsmith Young to overcome their students' significant learning disabilities. The Arrowsmith program does not directly address learning difficulties in academic areas such as reading and math, but rather focuses on the underlying cognitive weaknesses that make it impossible for some children to learn in regular classrooms. According to the author, new understanding of brain plasticity and how to overcome learning problems has made it possible for every child to achieve academic success. The book tells the stories of nine children as they work through the program at one of Mr. Eaton's schools, going on to make successful transitions to regular schools. Here's an excerpt (pp. 206-207) from the chapter that tells Cody's story, wherein it is claimed that the IQ's of Arrowsmith children improve significantly.

"Through our data-gathering efforts at Eaton Arrowsmith School, we are constant witnesses to intelligence changes among our graduates as they receive updated psycho-educational assessments from other learning centres. Intelligence tests show dramatic improvements in cognitive capacities such as perceptual reasoning, nonverbal intelligence, processing speed, and working memory. Beyond intelligence measures, we are observing improvements in visual-motor integration, motor coordination, visual memory for symbols, and expressive and receptive language abilities. Finally, depending on the type of learning disability, we have also observed significant shifts in mathematical reasoning, reading comprehension, reading speed, writing fluency, written expression, and math calculation skills. There is much research ahead of us. These are exciting times in neuro-educational developments.

"What does it mean for education if intelligence is not fixed? In particular, what does it mean for the field of learning disabilities? First, the entire psychological and educational assessment business needs to be revisited in terms of diagnosing or labelling children with learning disorders or disabilities. For example, if a child is tested and found to have severe perceptual organization intellectual deficits, one cannot simply assume that this is a life sentence. Cody is a perfect example of this. A child can actually improve visual-perceptual cognitive functioning through intensive and systematic cognitive remediation. This will in turn dramatically improve overall intelligence for this child."

Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes

Explicit instruction is systematic, direct, engaging, and success-oriented - and has been shown to promote achievement for all students. Rigorously research-based, this highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area. The authors are leading experts who provide clear guidelines for identifying key concepts, skills, and routines to teach; designing and delivering effective lessons; and giving students opportunities to practise and master new material. Sample lesson plans, lively examples, and reproducible checklists and teacher worksheets enhance the utility of the volume. The excerpt (pp. 20-21) is captioned "Drill and Practice Versus 'Drill and Kill'.

"As noted several times in this chapter, providing numerous practice attempts for students as they learn new skills is a key element of explicit instruction and consistently appears as an important element in teaching students with learning difficulties. Because drill and practice are integral to learning, we devote an entire chapter of this book to guidelines for providing effective practice. Although we believe the judicious practice is critical for students to commit useful facts, rules, concepts and strategies to memory in order to use them fluently (i.e., accurately, fluidly, and with little thought), some educators have raised concerns about the use of drill and practice as learning tools. Among these concerns are that practice (via seatwork and homework) dulls creativity; indeed, practice for committing skills and facts to memory has been dubbed 'drill and kill'. Part of this contention appears to be based on the assumption that repeatedly practising skills dulls the mind and does not lead to higher-order thinking or creativity. Instead, students should be given more enjoyable problems to solve on their own, whereby they construct their own knowledge. Through such activities, it is believed, students will become fluent and automatic on their own.

"We have found no research to back up this contention, although we agree that regular drill and practice can be conducted in ways that render it pointless, a waste of time, and frustrating for children. However, when used appropriately, routine practice is an extremely powerful instructional tool that not only helps students learn and retain basic skills and facts in a fluent fashion, but has positive outcomes when students attempt higher-order strategies. The ability to use basic skills in reading or math without having to stop and think about them allows students to allot more of their attention to solving more complex tasks. For example, if students are not fluent in basic math facts, their ability to solve complex math problems will be hindered. They must use their working memory to remember basic math facts, and thus will have less attention to focus on the problem-solving aspect of the task. Similarly, the positive relationship between reading words fluently (which comes from repeated practice and exposure to words) and comprehending what is read has been clearly documented. It appears that the adage 'drill and kill' would be more appropriately stated as 'drill and skill' or even 'drill and thrill'."

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

This is not at all educational and kind of frivolous, but hey - it's been a long winter and we need a breath of spring. You can create a flower garden by clicking here and then clicking here and then on the black area. You can also click and drag, or click and hold down for some interesting effects. Happy Spring!